俄罗斯前间谍在英国疑似中毒后病危Suspicion falls on Russia after UK spy’s collapse

来源：FT中文网 2018-03-07 06:45

When UK spymasters asked their intelligence allies in Washington to add Sergei Skripal to a list of three Russian double agents to be swapped with a spy ring working undercover in the US, it was assumed the former military intelligence officer would retire to peaceful obscurity in Britain.

Mr Skripal and his daughter had been found slumped unconscious on a bench outside a Salisbury shopping centre in south-west England on Sunday.

周日，斯克里帕尔与女儿被发现昏倒在英格兰西南部索尔兹伯里一个购物中心外的长椅上。

As police cordoned off areas of the city and officers carried out searches wearing what appeared to be radioactive protective suits, UK intelligence officials raced to establish whether another Russian spy had been the victim of a poisoning attack on British soil.

Although police and security officials urged caution, analysts and commentators were quick to point the finger at Russia.

虽然警方和安全官员敦促各方保持谨慎，但分析和评论人士很快将矛头指向俄罗斯。

“When a major enemy of Russia suddenly becomes critically ill from an unknown substance, one has to assume the worst,” Bill Browder, chief executive of Hermitage Capital and an outspoken critic of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, told the BBC’s Newsnight programme on Monday.

Yesterday, the local police handed over the investigation to the counter-terrorism force.

昨日，当地警方已将调查移交给反恐部门。

Police and MI5, the domestic security service, must establish whether, 12 years after former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned at a London hotel with the radioactive agent polonium-210, Mr Skripal is another victim of Russian undercover agents exacting revenge.

Boris Johnson, the UK foreign secretary, said that Britain would respond “robustly” if an investigation concluded that the pair had been poisoned in a state-sponsored attack.

英国外交大臣鲍里斯•约翰逊(Boris Johnson)表示，如果调查结论是两人因一场国家发起的攻击而中毒，英国将做出“强烈”回应。

Identifying the exact nature of the substance that caused Mr Skripal to become so ill — the pair were initially suspected of taking the opioid, fentanyl — is their priority.

当务之急是识别导致斯克里帕尔病危的物质的性质；两人最初被怀疑摄入了阿片类药物芬太尼(Fentanyl)。

But in the case of Litvinenko, it took weeks to identify the substance that caused his slow, painful death, and much longer to gather sufficient evidence to blame Russia.

但在利特维年科的案件中，当局花了数周时间才确认导致他缓慢而痛苦地死去的物质，并花了更长的时间收集足以指责俄罗斯的证据。

Mr Putin has made clear that spies who turn against Russia will pay the price for their disloyalty.

普京已经明确表示，背叛俄罗斯的间谍将为自己的不忠付出代价。

“Traitors will kick the bucket . . . 30 pieces of silver they received, they will choke on them,” he has said.

他曾表示：“叛国者将一命呜呼……他们得到了30枚银币，他们将被噎死。”

Yesterday, Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin’s spokesman, said that the UK authorities had yet to approach the Russian government for assistance in its investigation into Mr Skripal, adding: “Moscow is always open to interaction.”

“We know that this tragic situation has happened, yet we have no information about its probable causes, what this man has been doing, and what this is about. So, I simply cannot make any comments,” Mr Peskov said. “I am unable to offer any reaction, because we have no information at all.”

If Mr Skripal’s illness is determined to be the result of foul play, intelligence chiefs at both MI6, the UK’s foreign intelligence service, and MI5 will face difficult questions over how it was allowed to happen and whether the perpetrators are still at large in the UK.

“Still people can’t understand what they need to do, how they need to protect themselves,” Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, told The Times newspaper.

利特维年科的遗孀玛丽娜(Marina)对《泰晤士报》(The Times)表示：“人们依然不知道他们要做什么，他们该怎样保护自己。”

The BBC reported that Mr Skripal had been given an MI6 pension on his arrival in the UK in 2010, in return for giving speeches to defence and security officials and for providing “consultancy” to intelligence officers. Intelligence officials could not immediately be reached for comment.